


omens of downfall

by theformerone



Series: sukeban 'verse [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clan Politics, Gen, Hyuuga Clan-centric, Konohagakure | Hidden Leaf Village, Sunagakure | Hidden Sand Village, me: kishi women exist kishi: who the FUCK said that, what if kishi didn't forget that moms exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21665773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: His mother wakes him up with a gentle hand on his shoulder, coaxing him to his feet, onto her back, into the night.The Hyūga Affair has a different ending when Hizashi's widow decides that enough is enough.
Series: sukeban 'verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561933
Comments: 17
Kudos: 257





	omens of downfall

Hizashi's body is cold, his eyes bound with white bandages, his Byakugan hidden away forever. Nozomi stands over his corpse, her jaw clenched tight. Neji is away in bed, sleeping. He had wept the way only a child can, with his whole body, all of him shaking, until there was nothing left for his little self to do except sleep. 

Nozomi is not a child. She hasn't been one for many years now. While her husband was born a twin to the Main family, Nozomi was born alone into the Branch. She wasn't born with a Byakugan. Her eyes were a touch too grey, a mix of that and purple that gave her pupils and heather irises. 

She had been an average shinobi by Hyūga standards, but had excelled with fuinjutsu. She was sixteen when the elders brought her into their fold, and taught her the juinjutsu of the Hyūga clan. Nozomi was seventeen when she first sealed away the Byakugan of a Branch child. 

She had begged the elders not to make her the one that sealed away Neji's eyes. She was twenty-nine, would be a career chūnin for the rest of her life because of the way the clan had chosen her future, and she didn't want to be the one that cursed her child. 

Hizashi had sat beside her through the whole process. While she carefully takes a drop of blood from the living elders, from Hiashi, and while with the tip of a fine senbon, she carves the seal into her boy's forehead. 

He's no older than a year. Eleven months and two-hundred-sixteen days. Nozomi counted them. Hizashi held her by the arm when Hiashi formed a seal with his hand, sending a quick sliver of discomfort to his infant nephew. 

Neji had let out a little wail that broke Nozomi's heart. It was a pain she would never know, never understand. But she did in that moment. She had looked from her son to Hizashi, and she had seen all the love in the world on his face, and all the rage in hell in his eyes. 

Hiashi noticed it, too. 

* * *

She packs lightly, brushes her hands over the shoulders of those who will come with her. Because she has no Byakugan to seal, she is the best to move among them. Because she is the one that helps lock away the eyes of their clansmen, she is not so rigidly watched. 

She tucks away Neji's clothes, pictures of him with his father, of the three of them, together. Smiling. Laughing. She dries meats, salts fish, bakes bread, molds onigiri for travel. She has to make enough for all of them, not just for herself and her boy. 

They have to wait. They have to bide their time very carefully. It can't be too soon after Hizashi's death. And besides, she has to chip away at the strength of the seals, every night, with great effort. There are a pair of elders on her side, called Hide and Haia, who watch over her work, who help her. They will come as well.

Nozomi takes Neji with her out of the compound as often as she can, especially when she goes to the library. She keeps him at her knee, bouncing him, trying to lull him, trying to make him cheerful. He's resistant to every effort she makes, but she knows, she _knows_ that it will get better soon. 

It must. It has to. It will. She will be sure of it. 

* * *

When the Hidden Villages were founded, Sunagakure was the most tenuous of them all. The daimyo's control of the village has always been tenuous; Suna was largely held by nomadic tribes. Each tribe was fiercely independent. The sheer number of them and their general reluctance to fold into a centralized government had always given the daimyo trouble. What the tribes did respect, was strength. And the Shodaime Kazekage was the strongest shinobi in the desert. 

Nozomi has spoken with her elders, with Haia and Hide in gardens far away from the Hyūga Estate. In hushed tones, in code, with blinks and carefully cultivated silences. She understands the risk she is taking, and the risk she is asking her clansmen to take with her. 

The Branch family was not disposable. Her husband was not, and neither is her son. Neither is little Tokuma, or Iroha. Neither are her Branch elders. It was Konohagakure, the Sandaime, the Main family that had decided that Hizashi's life was only worth as much as Kumo decided it was. 

Hiashi had tried to stop it, or maybe that's what he tells himself at night so that he can sleep. Nozomi doesn't believe it. Her husband did not need to seek his freedom in death. He should have had it while he was still alive. Nozomi will make sure that her son has the luxuries his father was denied. 

If this village saw the Branch Hyūga as valueless, that was fine. Hawk's eyes are worth their weight in gold in the desert. 

* * *

His mother wakes him up with a gentle hand on his shoulder, coaxing him to his feet, onto her back, into the night. 

Neji is small and tired from his day at the academy, so he rests. He doesn't know where they're going, but he's not too concerned. He's with his mother, so he knows that he's safe. 

He sleeps, and he dreams of sunflowers. Of starry nights full of great big trees, of cloudless skies and the moon in the sky like the round top of one of Hinata-sama's birthday cakes. Neji dreams of cake, of eating it with his parents on his birthday, quietly in their little house. He dreams of goldfish in the sky, and the wind rippling through his hair. He dreams that the scar on his forehead disappears forever. 

He dreams and dreams, until he's roused from his sleep. He's on his mother's back, his arms loose around her throat. He can hear her voice from far away, like he's swimming through honey to hear her. 

" -- -sama, I am Hyūga Nozomi, widow of Hyūga Hizashi. I believe you know why I am here."

"I have some idea." 

The man's voice is raspy and low, like the dark gray sand by the lake on the Hyūga property. Neji remembers sitting by Tokuma and learning to skip stones on the water, flexing his Byakugan to see them even when they got too far away. 

Tokuma would bump shoulders with him and smile, and teach him how to strain his eyes just-so, so that he could see the stone still dancing across the water even a meter or two meters away. 

His tou-san had been so proud when Neji saw him coming from five meters outside of the clan compound, through the massive stone gates. His tou-san had lifted him up into the air and spun him around. Neji remembers feeling butterflies in his belly when his father lifted him up. He remembers giggling, and his father hurriedly tucking him into his side, because such a display of affection was not becoming of the Hyūga. 

He remembers his father carrying him to their home, saying, "Nozomi, I'm home, you'll never guess what your son's done today!" 

His mother, coming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands with a towel. Kissing his father and then Neji on the cheek. Safe with the door shut behind them. Safe without the Main family's eyes on their every move. 

" -- no reason to believe a squadron of Konoha shinobi won't be coming after this troupe of yours by morning." 

"Tokuma-kun, Iroha-kun. Please, show him." 

Something must happen, because the man says nothing for a moment. 

"-- of them are the same. Even our elders. Hide-sama, Haia-sama, as well -- ," 

More silence, but now, considering. 

"This boy is Hyūga Hizashi's son?" 

"And by blood, Hyūga Hiashi's as well." 

"Show me his forehead."

A pair of gentle hands comes to take Neji off his mother's back, and his eyes open slowly. The light is low, and the air is cold around them. They aren't in a room or an office. Neji can see his mother, his cousins, and shinobi with hourglasses on their hitai-ate. 

There is a man in long white robes, wearing a wide green hat with a white triangle on the front of it. Spheres of bright gold float lazily around him, catching the light of the moon, and the lanterns held by the shinobi Neji doesn't recognize. 

"Okaa-san?" he asks, once returned to his mother's arms. 

He grabs onto the front of her shirt, trying to moor himself to something familiar. He presses his face into her throat to get the smell of her, like irises and trees, ink and blood. 

"Neji-kun," she says, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "I need to take off your bandages, okay?"

He lifts a hand to his forehead, frowning. He doesn't like his seal. None of them do. He balls his hand into a fist, and shakes his head. 

"Neji-kun," his mother repeats, a little more firm but no less gentle, "it'll only be for a little while. I promise." 

He presses his lips together, but puts his fist down. It'd be bad to disobey his mother in public, in front of strange shinobi no less. He puts his fist by his belly, and he lets his mother's fine fingernails peel at the wrappings. 

"Now, Neji-kun, can you say hello to these nice shinobi for me?" 

He blinks up at his mother in the low light, and nods. Neji turns his head to the strange shinobi, among them, a little blonde girl with bright teal eyes. Her eyebrows are narrowed, but she doesn't turn up her nose and look away from him. She stares him right in the face. 

"Hello," Neji says, but he's speaking to her instead of the 'nice' shinobi. Shinobi weren't nice. If they were, his father wouldn't be dead. 

The blonde girl wrinkles her nose, but there's something mischievous. She mouths 'hello' back to him. Neji chances a smile. 

The shinobi in the hat like the Sandaime's examines Neji's face like he's the one with the Byakugan. He finds whatever he's looking for, because after a moment, Neji's mother carefully begins to rewrap his forehead, and Neji presses his cheek to his mother's breast, listening to her heart beat in her chest. 

_Duh-dum, duh-dum, duh-dum._

A steady rhythm. One he can rely on. 

_Duh-dum, duh-dum, duh-dum._

" -- until morning. For now, follow me. There are empty homes in the Arroyo district -- ," 

He falls asleep to the beat of his mother's heart, lulled by her footsteps, one by one, into a different future, into the dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> since i couldn't wait until february, this is the prequel to 2020's femslash february fic, titled 'sukeban'. keep your eyes peeled for it! i hope you're all as excited as i am!
> 
> because hizashi and hiashi are identical twins, neji is biologically speaking both hiashi's son and his nephew. meaning hinata is also biologically hizashi's daughter and niece. this WILL come up in sukeban.


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